Forest City Ratner Companies announced that it has leased the last available retail space in The New York Times Building at 620 Eighth Avenue near Times Square. Andrew and Jonathan Schnipper, the brothers who founded New York’s innovative Hale and Hearty Soup chain, have leased 3,200 square feet at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 41st Street for their first new “concept” restaurant, an updated version of a classic roadside eatery serving burgers, salads and other American favorites in a fast casual, relaxed setting. The 20-year lease also includes 1,000 square feet of outdoor seating.

The new New York Times tower is shiny and pretty and environmentally friendly and all that. But, as it turns out, it's also a hulking mass of conflicts of interest. For the last year or so, every time the paper so much as passingly mentions the Atlantic Yards project it feels compelled to make the ritual disclosure that, indeed, Bruce Ratner's Forest City Ratner was also responsible for the new 52-story headquarters. And now that it's turning out that at least some of the blame for the botched Deutsche Bank dismantling that led to two firefighters' deaths belongs to a company called Safeway Environmental, a new standard disclaimer was introduced today:

(Safeway Environmental was one of the subcontractors used in the development of a new headquarters for The New York Times, across Eighth Avenue from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.)

What's coming next? Did Roger Stone lobby for tax breaks on the new building? Did Joe Bruno fly down for the day to have a meeting about it? Do employees feel violated as neighbors peer through the glass walls at what's going on inside? We so hope David Berkowitz used to deliver mail to whatever stood on the Eighth Avenue site back in the seventies. That'd be an awesome disclaimer.
Obscure Company Is Behind 9/11 Demolition Work [NYT]

The staff of the New York Times, as you may have (repeatedly) heard, is not entirely enamored of the paper's shiny new building, across Eighth Avenue from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. (This probably says more about the sorts of conversations we have than about anything else, but we've been finding it profoundly odd for the last month or so to no longer be able to use the phrase "43rd Street" to refer to the paper's headquarters. "Eighth Avenue" just doesn't work the same way.) People don't like the elevators, they don't like the toilets, they don't like the automated window-shade system, and they don't like the lights, which sometimes turn off on their own. (They also don't like the leaks, mice, and maggots, though that displeasure would not be unique to Timespeople.) In today's new New Yorker, that magazine's architecture critic, Paul Goldberger, an alumnus of 43rd Street who presumably has listened to his old friends kvetch about their new tower, passes along yet another dissatisfaction with the new workplace:

In a nice, democratic gesture, most of the building’s perimeter has been left open, bringing in lots of natural light, and the private offices for editors all have glass walls facing into the newsroom. One member of the editorial board, who gave up a large, enclosed office in the old building for one of these small fishbowls, growled to me, “There’s no place I can change into a tuxedo.”

God, it's hard working in the newspaper business these days.
Towers of Babble [NYer]

Prince's highly publicized performance at the Ross School in East Hampton didn't exactly get the crowd going. And he wouldn't attend the after-party until everyone else left. Padma Lakshmi has been spending a lot of time with billionaire Teddy Fortsmann. Hillary Clinton has a subscription to the Post but not the Daily News. Jon Lovitz put a beating on Andy Dick at an L.A. comedy club during an argument over murdered SNL star Phil Hartman. Paris Hilton drugged her newest boyfriend with pills. Naomi Campbell gets to throw a temper tantrum in a Dunkin' Donuts commercial directed by Zach Braff. Some staffers don't like the cubicles and the food-paying system in the new New York Times building.

East Hampton: Dylan’s Candy Bar will open its first chainlet store on Main Street on August 4. [Restaurant Girl]
Gowanus: Joy sucked out of the opening of Kyoto Japanese restaurant on Smith Street as high rents have knocked out another small business next door. [Gowanus Lounge]
Greenport: Mike Osinski earns 75 cents a piece for oysters he grows in the water off his backyard. Trading two dozen mollusks to get out of a traffic violation: priceless. [NYT]
Hell’s Kitchen: The cafeteria in the new Times building offers a sushi roll branded the "News Room." [Gawker]
Lower East Side: Cronkite Pizzeria served its last pie Saturday. [Eater]
Midtown East: The Farmer’s Market at Rockefeller Center will be open Thursdays to Saturdays through August 19. [Grub Street]
Midtown West: Barbecue snobs may disregard the following: Brother Jimmy’s is opening a new location near Penn Station. [The Strong Buzz]
Nolita: Vig Bar looks closed. [Down by the Hipster]
West Village: Piano bar Rose’s Turn will turn down its lights forever on July 22. [Lost City] Day-O is closed for repairs. [Grub Street]